West Midlands Adult Eating Disorders Provider Collaborative

The introduction of NHS-led Provider Collaboratives creates a shift in the approach to commissioning specialised mental health, learning disability and autism services. Our collective focus will be on the health of local populations, understood through outcomes, experience, and the delivery of transformation in pathways of care. Our ambition through NHS-led Provider Collaboratives is to ensure that people with specialised mental health, learning disability and autism needs experience high quality, specialist care, as close to home as appropriately possible, which is connected with local teams and support networks.

Provider Collaboratives are seeking to enable specialist care to be provided in the community to prevent people being in hospital if they don't need to be and to enable people to leave hospital when they are ready.

NHS-Led Provider Collaboratives mark a new era for specialised mental health, learning disability and autism services. Building on the success of New Care Models for tertiary mental health services, NHS-Led Provider Collaboratives will drive improvements in patient outcomes and experience. NHS-Led Provider Collaboratives will also bring much needed focus on tackling inequalities for their local population and increasing the voice of lived experience in improving the quality of care provided.

This short video by NHS England explains what Provider Collaboratives are.

Feedback from partners

The West Midlands Adult Eating Disorders Provider Collaborative has been operating in shadow form for the past year. There is a central referral point, staffed by a Clinical Liaison Practitioner, and referrals are discussed at a weekly bed management meeting, which is attended by the Clinical Leads from all the provider units.

This has enabled us to prioritise patients by severity and ensure that the most unwell patients are placed in a bed somewhere in the region. It has also enabled us to allocate patients to the unit which is most suitable for their needs. Patients are always admitted if possible to the unit linked to their community team but the system ensures that a bed can be found elsewhere in the region when the linked unit is full. Referrers only need to make a single referral and are often invited to attend the bed management meeting to discuss the referral in person.

An unexpected benefit of this system is that the weekly bed management meeting serves as a forum for clinicians to discuss difficult cases and share information about known patients. All the clinicians involved have found this a very helpful and supportive experience.

Links to Eating Disoders information

• Beat is the UK’s eating disorder charity
• Birmingham and Solihull NHS Foundation Trust
• Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Partnership Trust
• Elysium Healthcare
• Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
• The Priory Healthcare

Latest News

We have been operating in shadow form for almost 12 months, and we are now close to 'go live' formally taking on the contract, budget and commissioning responsibilities.

Significant progress has been made in relation to key outcomes for our Adult Eating Disorders patients across the West Midlands and this is due to the close partnership working across the region and the commitment from all in working together.

Some of the key outcomes can be seen in the accompanying graphic.

Thank you to everybody involved for your continued support in delivering the positive change for our patients.

We will keep you updated as we move forward to the next stage of the Collaborative.

The key outcomes are:

• Go Live in April 2021
• Reduction in Out of Area Activity by 100% Clinical Liaison Role and Peer Support Role improving delivery and connections
• Reduction in length of stay by 36 days
• Over 40 hours of Bed Management clinical discussions held over the last 12 months managing 43 admissions
• Worked with system partners to identify gaps in service provision to ensure community services are robust - Worcestershire, North Staffordshire
• Reduction in distance travelled by 89 miles
• 17 avoided patient admissions
• Efficiency savings of £850k to £1m (avoided admissions)
• Working with STPs across the region to progress the Community Mental Health Framework
• Next steps:
  1. Agree Lead Provider Contract
  2. Agree sub contracts
  3. Recruit to roles
  4. Implement Governance